Second Outing With The Party Q on The WSM

The first smoke with the Party Q was a pork butt with water in the pan. The actual end product turned out great.





The problem was in maintaining constant temp which is exactly what this rig is supposed to do. On a 18.5 WSM with a full ring (approx. 16 lbs of KBB) with a full pan of water the Party Q maintained 270*F for the first 2/3rds of the cook (8 hours) then temps started going up. I added some water to the pan but after 10 hours temps dropped rapidly. I had burned through 16 lbs of KBB in 12 hours. Normally even with water I can maintain 16 hours @ 250*F. I pulled the 10 lb butt off and finished it in the oven.

Now on to the second cook. This time no water in pan. Just had it wrapped in foil.

The Wife found a heck of a deal on spare ribs. .99/lb!





Trimmed them St. Louis style and dusted with K-salt and Simply Marvelous Cherry:



From my previous experience I set the temp on the Party Q to 255*F so it would not overshoot. I would not have a problem with the temp going as high as 275*F.

Coming up to temp:





Again, a full ring of KBB just no water in the pan. Things went fine for the most part. I used pecan wood for smoke and the Party Q kept things between 255 and 265 for the first 3 hours. At that point I pulled the 2 racks of ribs and foiled with some liquid butter added. After putting the foiled racks back on and leaving for and hour, I came back out to find the temp at grill level was 340*F! Well I had planed to unwrap the ribs and sauce but after checking I pulled them before they went overtender.

They turned out great taste wise. Just too tender because the foiled temp was too high.

Sorry for the pic's. Wife went to cutting into them before I got back with the camera:





I will experiment again and make adjustments to master this rig.

Anyone else have a Party Q? I'm open to any and all input to improve the consistent temp aspect of this thing.

Thanks and sorry for the long post. :thumb:

Big George's BBQ said:

Does the fan have a slide to cut back on the air coming out of the fan. If so try cutting back the air flow in half

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I will check that George. No, it looks to be a set intake and output.

Thanks. :thumb:

AClarke44 said:

I know what the problem is! You didn't use Stubbs! ...lol. No? Well ok, not sure what help I can give as I don't own a controller like that, but the food you cooked still looked great to me! :thumb:

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You may have a point there. I started minion method with half a chimney on the two cooks. I may have started the coals too hot. :shocked:

Big George's BBQ said:

My Guru set up allows me to control the amount of air flow from the fan. Call Guru. They have really good customer service

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WOW! Customer service. That thought never occurred to me this day and time if you know what I mean. :thumb: I'll call them this week.

bradymartin said:

interested to know why partyq didnt keep temp down

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Exactly. All it can do is turn off the fan to lower temp. I'm starting to think with a dry water pan it could be one and possibly two things:

1. I'm adding too many lit coals at start up.

2. My rig is not air tight. Could be too mush O2 getting in.

Or maybe a combination of both. :noidea:

93vpmod said:

Good luck with your rig Toast. No help here, but I am watching intently as I recently purchased a WSM and have a DigiQII from my Backwoods that I never needed.

What mods do you have on yours?

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I just have the Cajun Bandit grommet and their SS door which is great for the WSM. You will love the way it cooks.

I'm just trying to push the envelope here as I do temp control for a living and it's also a hobby. Also, this Guru Party Q has a good algorithm built in that I'm still trying to decipher as I have to write them too.

ajstrider said:

I have a PartyQ in my toolbag.

When you took the ribs off to foil them, did you leave the lid off or put it back on?

One of the downsides to the PartyQ over the regular Guru is the door open feature. Your PartyQ sees a rapid loss in temperature when you take the lid off and will overstoke your fire. Even when the fan is off, air leaks through the fan. If it stoked the fire way way too much, it will have a very difficult time bringing it down.

Ways to avoid this is to turn the PartyQ off when you are removing the lid to do things. Then put the lid back on and give it a couple minutes to get back up close to temperature before turning the PartyQ back on.

Another tip, I normally let my pit come up close to temperature before putting the PartyQ on so the fan constantly blowing in the beginning doesn't use up all the batteries.

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I think you may have nailed my problem. I've give that a try next go around!